Amanda of “Eat Green” explains why and how… Interested? Email info@eatgreen.co.uk

We get it. You’ve spent a decade sitting on an allotment waiting list. Then elderly ‘Uncle’ Albert pops his clogs. You’ve finally made it to the top of the plots! You fork out on a fork – only to be faced with week-upon-week of back-breaking digging.

Want the good news? Eat Green still has plots for growing food in Withington and East Didsbury. They’re rent-free to our supporters. Being kindly souls, we’re happy to ‘flash mob’ your first sessions, bringing the vital tools, (wo)man power and moral support to get you through those early weeks.

Interested in finding out more? Come to our newest garden tool library launch on Tuesday 15 July – where you can tap into everything you need to start growing your own food.

We recently caught up with two of our landsharers. Here’s their story.

Sam Ward from Chorlton (Withington landsharer)
“After being told I could wait 15 years for an allotment, I was so grateful to be offered a chance to grow vegetables on shared land. Eat Green’s help clearing the plot – and free access to tools from the Burnage tool library – have been invaluable in getting me set up. Having other growers about to advise just helps to add to a sense of community”.

Royce Naylor (Didsbury landsharer)
“It is often said that nobody is totally bad and that the worst of people have still got a good side. My father is a good example, I think.

“At home, father of four boys in a post-war council house in Speke, an estate on the outskirts of Liverpool, he was a bullying violent tyrant to my mother and me and my brothers. Outside, he was a hard-drinking, adulterous charmer.

“However, we had a very large corner garden, as big as the landshare plot in Didsbury Village, and my father was an excellent committed gardener, like many others in those post-war rationed times.

“As we grew up he gave each of us our own plot in the garden and helped us grow whatever we wanted. We also helped him grow peas, beans, potatoes, brassicas, salad vegetables, and soft fruits. Throughout the year we always had freshly harvested fruit and vegetables on the table (one year I remember, we peeled and pickled several pounds of onions!)

“So I have remembered everything he taught me about his successful gardening methods and have remained a keen gardener to this day. I have always regarded gardening as both good physical exercise and also therapy for the soul.

“However, since I left home in 1965, aged 18, I have lived in flats and apartments, both rented and owned. Though I have maintained spacious Mediterranean gardens, not once have my partner Judith and I had anything more productive than courtyard gardens of our own where we have been able to grow our favourite flowers.

“We returned to South Manchester in 2010 and now live just down the road from our landshare plot. I was delighted to, at last, grow our own vegetables, using my father’s methods in the plot that Eat Green has provided for me just 5 minutes walk away.

“I am very pleased to have met new people who are committed to growing their own, and that we will have access soon to a nearby tool library, which I think is a great idea. I hope next year to develop our plot having learned much about the appetites of the local voracious menagerie of pests, and also do anything I can to help make Didsbury such a green and pleasant place to live.”